Characterizing Belgian co-directors/writers Helene Cattet
and Bruno Forzani’s style is tricky since they’ve only made two
features to date. Both “Amer” and “The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears” are visually overpowering homages to Italian gialli
from the ’60s and ’70s, seedy crime/detective stories with a focus on
psychological realism and sexual perversion. Cattet and Forzani’s gialli
feel more abstract than films by masters like Mario Bava, Dario
Argento, and Sergio Martino in that their films are not
narrative-centric. “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears,” a mystery about a deranged man’s search for his
missing wife, is largely made up of elliptical flashbacks and dream
sequences. It’s a confrontational fever dream film told from constantly
shifting perspectives, and a chilly, dizzying trip into a genre defined
by violently conflicting emotions.
In “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears,” we initially see the world through the eyes of
Dan Kristensen (Klaus Tange). He drinks to excess, but only after he
discovers that his wife Edwige (Ursula Bedena) has disappeared. It’s
unclear how he knows this is true given that he’s just gotten home from a
business trip. But Dan’s grip on the film’s reality is flimsy at best.
Everyone that he meets in his building can suspiciously relate to his
plight, including the pushy detective whose wife is also missing, and
the grieving 7th floor neighbor whose husband vanished. These supporting
characters aren’t just supporting characters. They’re like Dan in that
they’re united in absence, which makes their bond more than a little
uneasy.
To be perfectly honest, you don’t really learn much about
these characters beyond scattered images of mysterious goings-on that
have traumatized them, particularly disembodied body parts: eyes, lips,
rears, and uh, other unmentionables. Cattet and Forzani aren’t really
interested in telling a story, but rather relating the texture and
sounds of the people and things that haunt Dan’s building, an Art
Nouveau apartment with bulging walls, lurid stained glass fixtures, and
vertigo-inducing stairwells.
To enjoy “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears,” you have to treat Dan as an impersonal
construct, one of a handful of keys that unlock the images that assault
you throughout the film. This makes watching the film paradoxically more disorienting than “Amer,” a giallo homage that’s even less narrative-dependent than “Color” is. One story is being told in “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears,” but it’s told by everyone and everything around
Dan. He sort of just passively receives information, even during the
film’s claustrophobically-lensed, extreme-close-up-heavy sex scenes.
Realistically,
these sex scenes, which are filmed with even an even greater need to
accent vagina-like head wounds, and straight razor blades protruding out
of sundry orifices, are the best test of whether or not you’ll like
“The Strange Color of
Your Body’s Tears.” They’re blunt, and immediately effective if you buy
into Freudian fears of absence, and passivity. They’re arty and vain if
you think they’re going to highlight more complex power dynamics. This
is the kind of movie that’s bound to split up moviegoers. No one will
dispute the film’s dazzling look, or complex sound design. But beyond
that, the film’s merits are entirely dependent on how much you either
want to trace the similarities between the film’s narrative episodes, or
just want to zone out, and get lost. I encourage anyone that’s
interested in seeing this film to bring a friend you know you often
disagree with—the Gene to your Roger. Your heated post-screening
argument just might make the film one of your favorites of the year (go
easy on the name-calling though).
I found “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears” to be mesmerizing because it’s a weird mix of De
Palma-like precision, and Argento-esque immediacy. Which is to say: it
feels like a formally accomplished experiment that doesn’t need to add
up to much to be really impressive. There’s so much information swimming
on the film’s top-heavy surface, especially speculation about how guilt
and voyeurism inevitably go hand-in-hand, that the plot’s various gaps
can be filled in a couple of different ways each time you rewatch it.
Cattet and Forzani’s confidence as image-makers forces interest in where they take Dan to next, even if it’s ultimately nowhere
more memorable than a bracing shot or two (the mirror-sex scene is
especially memorable). I’ve deliberately kept the film’s plot and many
of its details a secret for that reason. “The Strange Color
of Your Body’s Tears” is a movie you really should see and judge for
yourself since so much of its charms are visceral. It’s a pleasure to
behold because it doesn’t try to be anything more than a beautiful,
troubling trip.
